F DOT LEONORA

It amused Eliza that Bebel Gilberto was playing in the background at the bar where she and Oscar had agreed to meet. She knew that she could not say anything to him at Fiona’s house, but it was time to address him in some way. She had been in so much pain since their long talk in Shanghai.

When he walked into the bar, she felt a sense of deja vu. It was like how he had twisted all of her goals that night when she met him. Her goal was to face him, and tell him about how hard it had been for her no matter how selfish it was for her to feel that way.

He sat beside her and looked at her.

“So am I really going to be able to talk to you? Or are you going to put up all your walls?”

Eliza stared at him, let her fingers rest on her cigar. She was not a cigar smoker really, but she had been here enough times with Rafe smoking and drinking. The cigar was kind of like a crutch, a reminder she was with him and that she knew they were unbreakable. But she also loved Oscar…and it was breaking her.

“You expect me to be okay, you expect me to act like nothing happened in Shanghai? Like you did not break my heart there? You want me to be okay that you have this perfect woman, who honestly if Rafe had met her first he would not maybe have wanted to be with me!”

Oscar grabbed her shaking hand, she relinquished the cigar.

“Do you think it was easy to let you go? It was the hardest thing I ever did, you lying on my bed in Shanghai. But I was with Polly, and I know that I could not have given her a fair chance if I got involved with you. It would not have been fair to her.”

“So you are in love with her?”

“Yes. I did not plan anything with her in Shanghai, but it happened after years of us not wanting it to happen.”

“So I was just a substitute then?”

“Eliza, stop it! Stop this victimization process! You can have any man you want, you can be with any man you want.”

“I want you.” 

“You’ve had me.”

Eliza picked up her gin and tonic, and her cigar. Was it Paris or nervousness why she was smoking like a chimney? Actual, or electronic, she was constantly puffing on something.

“I know it is selfish Oscar, but it is how I feel. I have been in a bad place ever since I left Shanghai…”

“Is it me, or are you just not happy?”

She sipped her drink.

“Are you happy?” he repeated.

Eliza looked down at her hands: gin and tonic in one, cigar in the other.

“Do you care?”

“Eliza, I care about you. I–“

“What,” she pressed.

Oscar looked at her with stern eyes.

“Stop acting like a stray cat.”

Eliza pushed her drink off the table, and stubbed her cigar out on the top of his palm.

“You motherfucker!”

Oscar grabbed her wrist, Eliza felt her eyes widen.

“You’re hurting me!”

“You are hurting yourself!”

He thrust her hand to the side, and got up.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mewled, clinging to him, scratching. That flimsy touching of his body, she savored like a child’s first communion wafer. She needed his body, and she knew she would not get it.

“Stop it, Eliza!”

“Keep saving yourself for your precious Polly!”

Oscar threw her off of him. When she came back toward him, he raised her chin up to face him.

“What is precious to you Eliza?”

Her eyes watered, she sobbed soundlessly. Oscar drew her to him, caressed her cheeks and temples.

She heard “Precious Things” by Tori Amos in her head.

“Just because you can make me come does not make you Jesus,” she said, pushing him away.

She walked away from him, dabbed at her eyes but did not turn back to look at him.

She had different goals, as looked down at her phone. There was a message from Adrian that she had avoided. Hoping Oscar…

Will be in New York. Axxx

Her labia felt tangled the way it did every time she thought of Adrian.

When she looked up from her phone, Oscar stood in front of her.  

“What–“

He pressed her to the wall, his face so close to hers…Eliza did not realize she was not breathing until she felt his breath on her upper lip. Oscar caressed her hip, she closed her eyes.

She waited for him.

When she opened her eyes, he was gone like smoke and she fumbled through her bag for her cigarettes because she needed one. Ashes hit her calves as she chain-smoked, and she did not notice…

More Wicked Wednesday here:

 cigarette ashes via wikipedia

Eliza was in a mellow mood listening to the sensual music of Bebel Gilberto coming through the speakers, and looking at Fiona. Even though they were far past Fiona’s admission of love for her in Shanghai, she was happy that Fiona was really in love. It was clear, especially in the way that Fiona denied anything that even suggested that she was in love with Alice. Alice was very clearly lovestruck, and had a way of hanging on Fiona’s every word and shadowing her, but not in a clinging way. It was almost a synchronization between them. It was clearly the beginning of a very lovely love affair.

Being back in New York, after being in Paris for so long was weird. It was an effort not to speak French, and not to crave French comforts. Eliza looked for Rafe, he found her with his eyes and his smile soothed her. She was walking toward him, when the apartment door opened and she smiled easier than she would have if it had been her own dinner party.

Her smile almost cracked on her face, but she kept up the facade as best as she could. Oscar was standing behind the woman that she had spied him with in Shanghai. The woman who she saw him with, and who he held with emotion that she could not fault him for, but it made her heart hurt.

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Hi,” Oscar said looking at her face in the warm caring way that he did to let her know he wondered what she was thinking. 

The woman he was with smiled softly at her,

“Hi,” she said.

Eliza moved to the side, so they could walk in. 

“Oscar!” Fiona walked over to them with glasses of the delicious fruity sangria that was made with a bubbly red Lambrusco wine. “I did not know you were coming?”

“I am Polly’s plus one,” he said with a smile. 

Polly, her name burned like a tiny fire out of control in Eliza’s head.

Polly looked at Eliza softly, it was clear that she had no idea who she was, and she had no reason to, but Eliza resented her for it.

She remembered the beginning of her relationship with Oscar. If they had met like this unexpectedly, they would have ended up tucking into a restroom or somewhere, and making out or making love.

“Oscar is my partner,” Polly smiled.

She looked so happy, the same happiness she had had when Eliza saw her in Shanghai with him. 

“Well Oscar and I go back, he and Eliza and I.”

Polly looked at Eliza now with interested eyes.

Eliza stared at Fiona briefly, then smiled at Polly.

“The art scene you know.”

“I know! Why that Dubuffet on the wall is a recent private sale.”

Alice ran over to Polly at that moment.

“It looks amazing there, doesn’t it?”

Eliza let the rest of the conversation come in and out of her head. She never expected that she could have a moment alone with Oscar. Rafe noticed him immediately. She and Rafe spoke again with their language of eyes, and Eliza shrugged.

It was by accident that Eliza was did end up alone with Oscar.

She had picked up a cigarette, as was her social smoking habit. When he stood by the open bedroom window with her, she blew smoke in his face.

“You could have told me!”

“I did not know that Fiona was Polly’s client. I just agreed to come with her, and I did not know where Fiona lived! Why are you so upset?”

He waved the smoke out of his face, and Eliza looked up at him. Her body responded to him as it always did. With urgent desire, just like it had in the beginning, same as the night they met when he picked her up. 

Eliza stared at him. She shook her head when she imagined him like he was the first time that they met, the rakish way that he approached her. Now he was restrained, it was that calm that lingered worse for her than any calm before a storm.

She leaned against the wall half tangled in the curtain, and blew more smoke so that it clouded her face and closed her eyes.

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 window via duck duck go images